ABSTRACT
Border-crossings and ‘deterritorialized’ film-makers explores the themes of mobility, displacement, border-crossing, migration, identity and memory and the boundaries and hybridities within boundaries. In the twenty-first century, the representations of mobility have become more gendered and racialized. New frontiers of migration appear constantly parallel to political conflicts and upheavals. The chapter explores how culture travels, how the concept of vatan (homeland or motherland) transforms itself, how the imagination crosses and recrosses real or imaginary borders, if the diaspora film-makers articulate and interpret history and its traumas within the context of adopted cultures and agendas and to who/where the transnational artist/work belong. Through detailed analysis of the works of multimedia artists Gülsün Karamustafa from Turkey, and Shirin Neshat, Mania Akbari and Ana Lily Amirpour originating in Iran, the author seeks answers to some of these essential questions. The chapter benefits from extensive research, existing literature and theories as well as interviews and correspondences with the film-makers.
